Inside the Secret Lives of Lesbians in Iran

Maryam Keshavarz, director of the new Tehran-set lesbian drama “Circumstance,” knows all about difficult circumstances.

She grew up in Iran and America in the 1980s, in the wake of the Iran Hostage Crisis, the Iranian Revolution and the war between Iran and Iraq. “It was a hard time growing up,” she admits. “I was hated in America for being Iranian, and I was hated in Iran for being American.”

Growing up in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, she says “our windows were broken; our tires were slashed. There was a lot of hostility.”

Keshavarz’s first feature “Circumstance” is also generating hostility.

Ever since premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, the film, which follows two young women grappling with their sexuality in the Islamic nation, has generated a considerable amount of anxiety within the Iranian and Iranian-American community, according to Keshavarz. She says she has received threats both in person and by email. “Threats in email are funny, because they are always in poor English,” she says.

At advance screenings, she says there have been hostile responses from men in the audience. “It’s usually Iranian men in their 50s and 60s,” she says. “Often, the questions are framed in terms of authenticity. Like I don’t have the right to speak because I don’t live in Iran. But I’ve always been very upfront that I go back and forth, and I have a different perspective than a filmmaker from Iran would. But I also have a difference perspective than an American filmmaker would. And because I go back and forth, I see change in a different light.”

With the release of the film, however, Keshavarz acknowledges that her most recent trip to Iran in 2009 will likely be her last. Initially, she says early drafts of the script were far more veiled and symbolic. “Everything was implied; nothing was shown,” she says.

But as she developed the script at the Sundance Writers Lab, she realized she was afraid to be more direct, “because a lot of my family lives in Iran and I didn’t want to jeopardize going back.”

“But as I started writing more truthfully and the characters became more real as opposed to symbols, I really started to strip away my self-censorship,” she continues, “and I realized that if I was going to make the film, I had to make it as truthfully as possible, and once I got that in the script, I would never be able to return to Iran.”

One scene in a dance club, for example, includes a derogatory phrase about Iran’s Mullahs that has had Iranian-American audiences audibly gasping.

“What’s funny about that line is that we had a dialogue coach from Iran and actors from Iran, and they loved the line, but they were really scared of the line,” says Keshavarz. “They asked me if can we change this line, because it’s going to get you into trouble. But I’m like, there’s a lot that’s going to be get me into trouble, but this is true to the character.”

Keshavarz admits she has every intention of ruffling feathers with the film, and hopes to engage viewers with the issues.

“People are threatened by the film, and not just the issues of sexuality, but it also deals with repression and how it affects individuals,” she says. “They’re really unnerving topics, and they’re addressed in different ways in Iran. They can’t show the scenes that I do and that’s uncomfortable for them. But I think it’s good to have that discomfort.”

“Yes, it’s a little hostile,” she continues. “But it’s strangely satisfying that even if some people don’t like it, they engage in a conversation afterwards, and even if it’s hostile, it’s still a conversation, and I appreciate that.”

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